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Saturday, August 20, 2016

The Circle // Ted Dekker // Review

So, I'm pretty new on Goodreads, and one of my recent reviews was on The Circle Series by Ted Dekker. I shared it with my best friend, and she suggested that I share it on my blog, so that my other blog-reading-friends could hear my opinions. :) So, being the kind of person who takes people up on their good advice, I have henceforth posted the review here. Also, if you would like to follow me on Goodreads, I am now ON IT. Which reminds me: I have a couple of different names throughout the internet. Sometimes it's Amaris, sometimes it's Phoebe, sometimes it will be Amy. I'm just letting you know, it's all ME. Now that THAT'S cleared up, onto the review!

It's actually WAY thicker than it looks here. :P

* * * * * * * * * *

*takes
deep breath* FINALLY. I AM FINALLY FINISHED WITH THIS SERIES. It took
me forever. I got this huge book with all four books in it for
Christmas, and I just now finished it.It would be absolutely
impossible to share all of my opinions on the series as a whole. I'm
just going to give the highlights. It's the kind of book that should be
read by people. I feel like the book has a lot to say for itself in
spite of a few things that I didn't like about it.

First, I feel
like this series would be better/more enjoyable if it WASN'T a series. I
mean, who wants to read a book for 5 months straight? I got other books
I want to read, too! It's not like I can STOP reading this book for
awhile and go on to read something else, and then come back to it,
because if I do that, I will completely forget what's going on, and who
is where doing WHAT. It's that kind of book. You really need to stay
with it, or else it won't make sense every time you randomly pick it up.
I wish maybe it could be shaved down into ONE, really good, fantastic
book. I would buy that.

Secondly, It's kind of hard for me to
talk about characters and events, because it would be very easy to spoil
it if I did. I do have my list of favorites, however. I loved Thomas.
He's the main character (no spoiler there!), and he is SPECIAL. I mean,
really. He's a hero, he's a naive kid from Denver, he's a man, he's a
world-changer, he's a dreamer. No bullet can stop him (literally). No
sword. I love the way he handles just about every situation. He knows
where the love is. He's loyal. If I met someone like that in real life,
he would be my hero, the one I admire, and I just might marry him! I
loved watching him grow up, from his first adventure in Denver as a
trouble-making teenager, to the End of the World in the last chapter, as
a mighty warrior who fights for good. Yes, good job with the main
character.

Third, I can't help but mention that there were
TIMES. Times in this book, where there was weirdness. The good thing
about this is, the whole book was NOT like that. There were just parts.
Parts in the evil queen's lair, parts when Thomas was transitioning into
his dreams, parts where a character sells himself to evil, parts where I
wondered what in the world I was reading this for. But the thing is,
those parts always ended. And they weren't TERRIBLE. They added to the
story. And if you think about it in terms of real-life, those parts were
absolutely, terribly real.

Fourthly, I must mention the
extraordinarily written endings. The ending of Black (Number One) was
AMAZING. I can't imagine what it must have been like for people to read
the ending of that book and have to WAIT for the next book to come out.
It must have been absolute MURDER for them! Black literally ended with a
riveting scene cut off right in the middle. I seriously jumped straight
into Red (Number Two) because I KNOW that I would not have been able to
wait to see how it turned out. It was THAT good. However.I really must mention the end of the entire SERIES. It.Was.Amazing.Also
sad. But using a word as common and trivial as "sad" seems a tremendous
understatement to say the least. The end of this book was literally the
end of the world. Where the faithful member's of Elyon's Circle are
finally taken up into eternal Paradise, and those left behind are
literally devoured by the remnants of Evil. There is a battle. It seems
Evil will WIN. But does evil win in the end? No, dear friend, it does
NOT. This book, the entire thing, from the beginning of time when man
turns away in disobedience, to the middle where Elyon's faithful few are
beginning to doubt His very existence, to the very, VERY end, when Evil
is conquered in a great and terrible battle Once and For All. It's a
picture of our own earth. We, as Christians, are His Circle. His
faithful few. There will be deception, there will be tragedy, there
will be doubt, there will be deception. But we must never doubt! Never
doubt His promise, dear friend! Ahem. Are you seeing what this series did to me?!Anyways,
let me get back to the ending! Not only was it a terrible and beautiful
picture of the ending of the world, it was A WONDERFUL ENDING FOR A
BOOK, just in general terms! It was written well. There are shocking
deaths, devastating betrayals, and hope given for the very last chance
to dive deep.

At the back of my version, there is a couple of
pages of an interview written with Ted Dekker, in which he explains his
reason behind the idea of the characters Diving into Elyon's Lake to let
themselves be washed and renewed by His goodness. I quote:

"I
was once in a time of meditation and I imagined God as a lake. And I
knew immediately that I had to write a novel in which one could dive
into God as if He were a physical reality. To do so I had to write a
story in which all that we see as spiritual was recast as physical. The
colored forest was born. As was the forbidden circle and the lake. I
then took the idea further and imagined retelling all of redemptive
history within the context of this world."

The best thing about
his representation of God's "redemptive history" in the story is that,
it's not done in a boring or cliched manner. It is done so that you are
so engrossed into the lives of the characters, so taken in by his
storytelling of the events and situations in the book, that you can
hardly tell that you are reading that 'retelling of history', as he
describes, yet in the end, you are touched in an emotional way because
of what you read about love, and the Blood. It is not boring. I have
read books where they add scriptural parallels within their story to
exemplify points in there story, to give it a redeeming quality. Those
books are well intentioned, but I find they are often cliched, boring,
and even disappointing. Write your own story! If I want to read about
the Bible, I'll read my ACTUAL Bible. I'm not saying I don't I like it
when a person gets saved in a book, I'm saying that it's easy to just
copy God's redemptive story, write it into your book, giving it a couple
of twists and turns to 'refashion' it and 'move' non Christians. I'm
saying that you COULD do that, but it must be done WELL. I must NOT
feel, as a reader, that I am being preached to. I open your book to read
a story. Give me a story, not a sermon!Ted Dekker does his
story VERY. WELL. When I read his book, I embraced the pure and simple
truth displayed as Elyon loves his people, and I did NOT feel preached
to. I felt connected to God's love in a real and personal way. I did not
feel like Dekker thrust the gospel onto me. I felt... well, I felt like I was reading one of the greatest books ever written.

Overall,
I still have a huge wealth of mixed feelings on how I feel about this
series. I guess I would have to divide it into parts. There were some
parts that were my FAVORITE of all books that I've ever read. Then there
were OTHER PARTS when I questioned why I even picked up the book to
read it in the first place. It was like that the entire way through the
book. In my head, constantly: "I hate this book... wow, I LOVE this
book... Why am I even reading this?... Wow this is SO GOOD... I don't
have time for this book, I have better things I could be doing... Wow
I'm really glad I got this book for Christmas... and etc.! On and on and
on.

But you know, I think it's the kind of book that SHOULD be
read by people. It's a beautiful picture of Christ's love for His bride,
and the Fall of Man, and the importance of the Blood, but without the
preaching, and as much adventure and thrill as you can wrap your head
around. The book is really a big mouthful to chew on, but I think that
people ought to give it a try, because it is a tremendously good book.
Maybe even a GREAT one.

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This Is Me

My name is Amaris.Welcome to my blog! I might not know you, but I hope you enjoy browsing around. As for me, I love the Lord. I am an INFJ-A personality. Nostalgic is often used to describe me. Grey and pink are my favorite colors. Stargazing fills me with awe. I believe that rain is beautiful, books are divine, and smiles are from heaven.

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